Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 3 (since 2010-01-29 00:25:16)

dan

College student, Reform Jew, supporter of a free Palestine

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  • 'LA Times' gives Wiesenthal Center a platform to spin falsehoods about Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem
    • dan February 13, 2010 at 2:26 pm with 3 replies

      It is very difficult to read stories like this and not come to the conclusion that there is a concerted and deliberate effort to erase the extensive and diverse religious and cultural history of Jerusalem (and historic Palestine at large) and replace it with a Judaic monoculture that makes all Zionist claims on the region to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought that Makdisi's connections to the displacement and disruption of Palestinian culture in 1948 was dead on. What disturbs me the most is the notion that this should be proposed for a "Museum of Tolerance". I'm from LA and I've been to the Museum of Tolerance and I think it is a very valuable institution. I definitely have some issues with the Simon Wiesenthal center but still, I would have no qualms about the construction of such a site at any APPROPRIATE and REASONABLE site in Israel... there's absolutely no other suitable location in Jerusalem they could find to put this building without displacing Palestinians in some shape or form? For that matter, why does it HAVE to be in Jerusalem? They couldn't put in Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc.? All this just makes me more suspicious (and more dismayed) that this isn't some ugly isolated affair but just an especially offensive example of a very wide-reaching and discriminatory Israeli policy of erasing Palestinian presence in their homeland, both current and historical.

  • Who would teargas 'Avatar'?
    • dan February 13, 2010 at 2:41 pm

      yeah that was my impression also regarding the invaders. my issue with the film was that it was posing as this statement about colonialism, indigenous rights, the environment, militarism, corporatism etc etc but really its just another insanely expensive, technology media spectacle (about something totally fictional) that in fact displays an immense amount of super stylized graphic violence and is basically just a money making machine for corporate Hollywood. And it seemed just like something that the de-sensitized American public can process and use to feel good about themselves, rooting for the poor oppressed aliens. When in fact all these things are actually happening in the real world often times due to the direct support of US taxpayers (Iraq, Gaza, Afghanistan, our government's refusal to do something about climate change) or a part of our own cultural history (Native Americans, US Imperialism at the turn of the century and the Cold War, etc etc). Maybe Avatar expressed these issues in a way that is more accessible to the average person and actually made people think about these things in reality and want to do something about them, but... I'm honestly not so sure.

    • dan February 12, 2010 at 5:20 pm with 4 replies

      There were a lot of things I disliked about Avatar but I think this is brilliant. I admit that I immediately thought of Gaza at one scene in the movie, and I think it is very appropriate for Palestinian youth to be adopting the imagery of global media and popular culture as means of bringing attention to their struggle and the injustices perpetrated against them in a way that is very recognizable and symbolic.

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